How I Fell Back in Love with My Wife.
It’s good to know when you hit rock bottom because things can only improve from there.
I can pinpoint the exact moment my marriage hit rock bottom. We’d moved into a new home a month before. Moving out of our massive old place and into a much smaller townhouse brought with it any number of hassles and aggravation. It also put a tremendous strain on our relationship and our finances.
First we learned that we’d have to replace the air conditioning for 14,000 dollars. Next we unhappily discovered that the plumbing was all rotted out and leaking and would require another 13,000 dollars in repairs.
Along with the economic cost came a creeping sense of dread and paranoia. My wife was convinced that there was water dripping from the ceiling and she was, unfortunately, right at least some of the time.
We were not supposed to use the bathroom closest to the boys bedrooms but oftentimes what will happen is I will receive a crucial piece of information that I am deeply committed to acting on but then an ADHD fog will roll in and whisk away that important info into a black hole from which nothing can escape.
That’s what happened that awful night. My ADHD/Autistic brain learned that it would be a terrible thing to bathe the boys in their bathroom but I forgot that sometimes en route to giving them a bath.
My wife was furious, deservedly so. I kept making the already difficult and arduous process of moving even more difficult by screwing up.
They say that when you die your life flashes before your eyes. That was true of my marriage that night.
It felt like a near-death experience. I could see my marriage flashing before my eyes.
It was a form of death. If I lost my marriage, I would have lost everything. I’m not sure how, or if, I could go on.
That night it felt like my wife could walk away with her head held high, confident in the knowledge that she’d done everything she possibly could for fifteen long years but finally it became impossible to go on any longer.
I wouldn’t blame my wife for leaving me. I knew in that moment that I had to fight for my marriage.
I never stopped loving my wife or appreciating her but somewhere in the endless grind of being a parent and a tax payer and a citizen of this curious Republic I stopped showing my wife that I loved her. I stopped showing my wife that I appreciated her. I let depression and anxiety and money problems keep me from being the best person and the best partner that I could be.
Life gets in the way of everything. Time is cruel. You stop seeing your partner as the exciting, vivacious and electric person you fell in love with and start to see them as weary colleagues who clean up poop and throw out the trash and attend to an endless series of other boring adult responsibilities.
In the months ahead something wonderful and unexpected happened. I fell back in love with my wife. I stopped taking her for granted. I started making a point of showing her how much I love and appreciate her every day.
I started seeing her for the brilliant, compassionate, driven woman that she has become, an absolute warrior for her family.
I’ve always loved my wife. But in the last few months I’ve fallen back in love with her. I’m excited to see her everyday. Everything feels weirdly new again.
We stopped fighting regularly. I started looking at my wife the way I did when we first got together.
That’s bittersweet because she was so beautiful and so full of life when we started dating but I realize now that I get the best version of my wife. My wife isn’t as good as she was when she was an impossibly gorgeous young woman: she’s better.
I got the version who is wise and kind. I got a wife who has humility. I got a wife who is an amazing mother and an incredible therapist and friend and endlessly patient partner.
I got a wife who is so much smarter and more beautiful and beloved than she thinks she is.
I wish that she did not have to struggle the way she has, in no small part because of me, but that struggle has given her tremendous strength and character. Living in Chicago for even a few years will do that to you.
I wanted to take care of my wife, to give her a glittering literary existence full of parties and travel and excitement.
Instead she’s had to take care of an autistic hermit prone to intense, extended periods of depression and anxiety.
Caring for two neurodivergent boys and a neurodivergent husband is not easy but she is uniquely qualified both due to her education (Brown, University of Chicago, Hampshire, The University of Capetown) and her big heart and brain.
Thankfully life is long as well as hard. I dream of someday being able to make it all up to her and help give her the life of stability and security she deserves and has worked so very hard for.
I got my wife for life. Assuming I don’t fuck things up I get the incomparable honor of growing old with her, of squeezing her hand at our boy’s graduations and getting buried next to each other.
I am dedicating my next book, The Fractured Mirror, to my wife. More importantly, I am dedicating the rest of my life to her as well.
Help me give my wife the gift she dreams of most-financial security-by supporting the following businesses:
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